Eugene Young appointed president, CEO of Wilmington Urban League

Network Delaware, which kicked off in January 2017, intends to be a statewide grassroots coalition of community organizers and leaders who advocate for public policy and economic development. The organization was born from the mayoral campaign of Eugene Young, who narrowly lost the 2016 Democratic primary.
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Eugene Young with Network Delaware, speaks at a rally for education on the steps of Legislation Hall in Dover.(Photo: Jason Minto, Jason Minto, The News Journal)Buy Photo

Eugene Young, a Wilmington leader who narrowly lost the election for mayor last year, will become president and CEO of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, the organization announced Monday.

Young, 34, will be the fourth president of the 17-year affiliate of the National Urban League, an organization dedicated to economic empowerment and social justice for people of color.

Patrice Gilliam-Johnson, whose father James H. Gilliam Sr., founded the Wilmington chapter, called Young's appointment "an incredibly appropriate fit for the moment in our city, state and country."

"We live in an uncertain time, one filled with old rhetoric of a time gone by, but also bursting with the energy of a generation committed to removing fences and disparities that continue to plague our communities and separate our shared destiny based on what we look like, where we come from or who we love,"said Gilliam-Johnson, state secretary of labor and chair of the board. "Eugene Young not only has a key sense of this dynamic, he has built a movement to directly attack the issues at their core."

The advocacy director for the Delaware Center for Justice, Young was previously an aide in the Delaware legislature and worked for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker when he was the mayor of Newark. Young started his career as the co-founder of Delaware Elite, a nonprofit that helped local student-athletes become successful in college.

"Our state is at a critical juncture, which makes the presence of the League that much more important," he said. "I am honored and thankful for the opportunity to serve a community that has given me so much."

Young ran a strong grassroots campaign for mayor, observers of city politics say, which resulted in a Democratic primary election loss just 234 votes shy of the winner, Mayor Mike Purzycki.

Volunteers for the first-time candidate said they knocked on 50,000 doors throughout the city, an effort that showed on ballots. Young won three of the city's six election districts. Third place finisher Keven F. Kelley Sr., won two districts, and Purzycki won one, the area surrounding his Highlands neighborhood.

Wilmington mayoral candidates Mike Purzycki (left) and Eugene Young square off over the role of experience during a debate of seven candidates at the Grand Opera House.(Photo: WILLIAM BRETZGER/THE NEWS JOURNA)

After his loss, Young galvanized the energy of his campaign and founded a nonprofit called Network Delaware, which launched in January. It aims to be a statewide grassroots coalition of community organizers and leaders who will advocate for public policy and economic development. Young is the board chairman.

Gilliam-Johnson noted Young's ability to unite people of different backgrounds.

"That movement is young, and more senior; black, brown and white; Jewish, Muslim and Christian, above and below the canal, and we believe the next evolution of the Urban League in Wilmington and the national level."

Young said the new role allows him to expand his perspective on social justice.

"This opportunity allows me to cast a wider net in understanding how issues from health to entrepreneurship and education, how they -- along with criminal justice -- impact the community at large," he said. "It's connecting the dots."

The Wilmington chapter has been without an executive for two years. CEO Deborah T. Wilson headed the organization from 2007 to 2015 before her removal following a decline in corporate funding. The nonprofit has been relying on volunteers and part-time staff.

Vice Chairman Tony Allen said an executive transition team has spent two years on a national search for a replacement. He declined to comment on the reasons for Wilson's departure but said he believes corporate donors, as well as city residents, will be attracted to Young's vision.

"He clearly has a passion for public service, for civil rights, and he’s proven himself as someone who can organize across a very broad sector of people of diverse backgrounds to put an agenda forward that would be of significance in Wilmington and throughout Delaware."

Allen, who was 31 when he became the first president of the Wilmington branch, said Young's energy will be an asset.

"The Urban League movement has been around more than a century and has always grown on the talents of quality, enterprising, oftentimes young, aspiring civil rights leaders," he said. "Eugene brings a contemporary and fresh perspective to movement."

Young said community outreach will be among his priorities.

"With any nonprofit, you have to be sure you're relevant and can meet the needs of the time," he said.

Sylvia Banks, an Urban League trustee and longtime Dupont executive, said Young's leadership marks "the rebirth of the Urban League movement in Delaware, one that will focus us on the things that should matter most to any citizen in a 21st century America -- economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights."